Salad Anniversary

A way long time ago in 1988 a friend here in Tokyo gave me a just published collection of poems called Salad Anniversary. The poems were by a still relatively unknown teacher of Japanese, barely 25 years old. The book, in a very short time, made the name of Tawara Machi practically household words.

Tawara spoke for a generation of young Japanese trying to find their way ebulliently through the ups and downs of city life. She wrote about love, or the lack of it, about family, baseball and music, and all the things that characterize life in a megalapolis as both thorny and exciting.

What makes her poems so effective and so interesting is the clever mix of old forms with new words, ideas and experiences. Tawara’s form is the classical thirty-one syllable tanka poem, which dates from the 8th century in Japan. Of course, this syllable count refers to the Japanese, and carries little relevance when the words are put into another language. But the poet is adhering to certain rules in composing tanka, and she meets those rules, but then quickly gives them a jaunty cuff on the ear. She follows one rule, but breaks the next. In many of her poems you find the classical aligned with the modern, vernacular expression mixed with classical conjugation.

Despite the seeming complexity, Tawara’s poems abound with freshness and the zest of life. Even now, 22 years after their publication they still have significance to the workings of the heart. If nothing else, the poems in Salad Anniversary are universal in their appeal. Still today they call up that, “Yeah, I know what you mean” response.

One of my favorite things about the poetry of Tawara Machi is the beauty she finds in every day small things. Whether it be green peas or electrical cables, she extracts a nugget of unexpected charm or beauty.

About the four examples from Salad Anniversary I am introducing here, the themes run from erotic love to memory, music and city experiences. Take a few minutes to savor the thoughts and observations of Tawara Machi. Maybe you too will read them with a feeling of, “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

Boyfriend…

Secretly I try on your jacket

drinking in your smell

and strike a pose like James Dean.

Longing for the past…

Memories

are like frozen mixed vegetables

except you’re not supposed to try thawing them out.

On the way home…

Pausing to vomit

a day of work-weariness and load another

the Yamanote Rail Line circles through murky twilight.

After a live concert…

Cords and cables flopped across the stage

as though they’d melted a score sheet

and let it drop.

The above English translations are by Jack Stamm from the 1988 First Edition.

Salad Anniversary

Kodansha International Edition (1990)

English translation by Julie Winters Carpenter

A Special Affinity

One of those golden days in Tokyo, with hints of an invigorating spring now blowing our way, no more than two weeks over the horizon. Just the time for a walk along the Kanda River, through Inokashira Park and on to Kichijôji. A good stretch of the legs and a chance to see in trees and river how the season is growing toward bloom.

And so I get a close-up look at the many cherry trees that make the Kanda something more than unremarkable, and give it that touch of splendor with the harmony of blossoms and water. But mid-March is too early for that sweet combination, branches all a shiver with buds still not ready to reveal their countless pink faces.

The Japanese have a special affinity with the cherry blossom, something that is all but ancient in their culture and tradition. These days the appreciation of spring and the cherry blossoms has taken on a slightly different form, but the recognition of these immemorial flowers is probably buried deep in the soul of all but a scant few Japanese.

From Japan’s earliest literature the cherry blossom has been endowed with a special character that resonates with human experience. It was not only poets who elevated the flower’s qualities, but warriors of the feudal age as well held the cherry blossom to be the perfect symbol of life and death. With its exquisite transience this fragile blossom mirrored the warrior’s likelihood of sudden death in battle. Here one moment, gone the next, or in the words of Macbeth, “Out, out brief candle, life is but a walking shadow…”

Turning to a modern expression of meaning in the spring blossoms, poet Tawara Machi’s 31 syllable tanka puts a different slant on it:

As if in this park

nothing at all has happened

the cherry blossoms

have bloomed, blossomed, scattered;

sakura sakura sakura…

Tawara’s cherry blossoms are seemingly indifferent to her personal concerns. And that is perhaps how very many young Japanese today look at the blossoms of spring. These days hana-mi (flower viewing) parties revolve around chug-a-lug drinking, karaoke and attention more to cell phones than overhead blossoms.

Times change, yet I continue to look for the lost.